Our Review of Monument Alcohol Treatment Online

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The Monument alcohol treatment platform offers online therapy, oral medication when appropriate, and support groups to help you in your journey to curb your drinking or stop drinking completely. In our review of the best online therapy platforms, it was our top pick for the treatment of alcohol use disorder.

According to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA), there are two main components of professionally led alcohol treatment: talk therapy and medication. Both are available online with Monument.

Pros

• Can access therapy and medication for alcohol use disorder, if medically appropriate
• Accepts insurance
• Can send unlimited messages to your physician and therapist
• Free membership includes therapist-led support groups and a forum to discuss recovery

Cons

• Treats alcohol use disorder only
• Plans are only available in 19 states and Washington, D.C.
• No immediate access to customer service

To join Monument and access its online patient portal, you will first need to sign up for an account. Once you confirm your email, you will fill out a 15-question survey about your treatment goals, current alcohol use, and related behavior from the past year.

Monument will ask a series of questions to better understand your history of alcohol use, including the following:

• How often and how much you drink
• Whether you've tried more than once to curb or stop your drinking
• Whether you've continued drinking despite it affecting your relationships
• Whether your usual number of drinks has less of an effect on you than before
• Whether you have more than once been in situations where you are at an increased risk for being hurt, like having unsafe sex or driving, during or after drinking
• Whether you've experienced symptoms of withdrawal, including trouble sleeping, sweating, nausea, and restlessness

Monument will use these answers to evaluate the severity of your alcohol use disorder.

Therapy for Alcohol Use Disorder

If you choose a Monument plan that includes therapy, you will be matched with a licensed therapist and meet with them weekly or biweekly over audio or video. Your therapist will develop therapy sessions around your treatment goals, whether you want to moderate your drinking or stop altogether.

Monument therapists will use cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) and motivational interviewing in their sessions with you. According to the American Psychological Association, both of these therapies can help you accomplish the following:

• Motivate you to stop drinking
• Learn what situations trigger you
• Foster new coping skills for situations that threaten your recovery
• Teach you how to develop support systems in your life

You can also send your therapist text messages at any time through the platform's built-in messaging feature. Messaging is asynchronous, so there will be delays between when you send the messages and when you receive a response.

Medication for Alcohol Use Disorder

If you choose a Monument plan that offers medication, you will first have a call with a physician to evaluate and discuss whether it's safe and appropriate for you. Monument physicians can prescribe naltrexone and disulfiram, two medications approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to help curb or stop drinking in certain people.

Naltrexone, according to the National Alliance on Mental Illness, blocks the effect of opioid receptors and aims to decrease alcohol cravings. The FDA states that it first approved naltrexone in 2006.

Disulfiram, according to the National Alliance on Mental Illness, prevents the body from breaking down alcohol, causing symptoms that include severe nausea, sweating, headaches, and vomiting. This effect is meant to encourage those on the medication not to drink. The NIAAA notes that disulfiram was first approved by the FDA in 1949.

If you are prescribed either medication, Monument recommends scheduling follow-up appointments with your physician every four weeks. You can also send them messages at any time through the online portal.

Support Groups for Alcohol Use Disorder

Every Monument member can join therapist-led support groups. The groups cater to a variety of topics that relate to or impact your recovery, including the following:

• Stress
• Anxiety
• Mindfulness
• Self-esteem
• Family and relationships
• Sobriety
• Moderation
• Grief
• Depression
• Trauma
• Parenting

Each session lasts an hour and you can choose whether or not to turn on your camera.

Community Forum for Alcohol Use Disorder

The community forum on Monument is a place for you to share and interact with other individuals working toward recovery. It looks and operates similarly to the apps Discord and Slack, with channels for introductions, general support, and resources. In every channel, you can see how many people are online at the top of the page. When you join the community forum, you'll be assigned a random nickname that you can edit if you wish.

Monument offers four different membership options. Here are the different plans available, as well as what features are included in each.

Community Membership Free

• Access to Monument support groups and its community forum

Physician Care $9.99 per month, plus $45 for initial appointment

• Initial appointment with a physician who can prescribe naltrexone or disulfiram if medically necessary
• Can send unlimited messages to your physician at any time (Monument recommends checking in at least every four weeks)
• Access to Monument's support groups and community forum
• Follow-up appointments cost $45 each
  • You will be charged when you schedule the appointment
  • Monument recommends follow-up appointments every 90 days

Total Care (Biweekly) $149 per month

• Includes everything in the Physician Care plan, plus two therapy appointments per month, via audio-only or video

Total Care (Weekly) $249 per month

• Includes everything in the Physician Care plan, plus four therapy appointments per month, via audio-only or video

Monument plans are only available to people residing in states where it has licensed providers:

• Arizona
• California
• Colorado
• Connecticut
• Florida
• Georgia
• Iowa
• Kentucky
• Maryland
• Mississippi
• New Jersey
• New York
• Ohio
• Oregon
• Pennsylvania
• South Carolina
• Texas
• Virginia
• Washington
• Washington D.C.

With the exception of the free community membership, Monument costs between $10 and $249 per month, depending on the plan you choose. It accepts credit and debit cards for payment. You will be billed every four weeks and can cancel at any time. If you try its services and decide it isn't for you, you will be refunded based on the number of days left on your subscription and how many provider visits you had that month.

Monument accepts insurance plans from Aetna, Oscar, Optum UnitedHealthcare, Oxford Health Plans, Medicare, and Cigna. Once you create an account, you can submit your insurance information to Monument from your patient portal to see whether your insurance will cover any of its paid plans. Monument does not offer financial aid.

Monument does not have a profile with Trustpilot and does not have a mobile app. It is not accredited by the Better Business Bureau (BBB), but does have an A+ rating and one customer review that gives it 1 out of 5 stars. The reviewer mentioned that they were dissatisfied that Monument could not prescribe medication at the dosage they expected.

We independently investigate and recommend products and services we believe will enrich the lives of our readers and meet their specific needs. You can read our full online therapy review methodology here. We've spent many hours carrying out in-depth research on the online therapy market. You can trust our review because we did the legwork for you in these specific ways:

• Engaged in ongoing independent research
• Mystery shopped each of the brands
• Contacted brands' customer service teams to ask questions and gauge responsiveness
• Consulted six leading psychologists and psychiatrists
• Became customers of online therapy providers ourselves
• Reviewed academic research about the efficacy of online therapy versus in-person therapy

Monument may be an option worth considering for those who want to moderate their drinking or stop drinking with the help of online support. It offers cognitive behavioral therapy, medically appropriate medication, and a free community membership that provides access to therapist-moderated support groups and a community forum. You can also choose from four different membership options to find one that offers the level of support you need, and you can cancel your membership at any time. While Monument accepts insurance from several different providers, it is not currently available in all 50 states.

If you are in crisis, waiting for an online therapy appointment may not be safe. In case of an emergency, call 911. That includes plans to harm yourself or others. If you're having suicidal thoughts, you can call the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline by dialing 988. Help is available 24/7.

You can also reach out to the SAMHSA National Helpline at 800-662-HELP (4357). The SAMHSA help line is a free, confidential, 24/7, 365-day-a-year treatment referral and information service for individuals facing mental or substance abuse disorders.